Submitted by Riddle on
Sounds stupid, right?
Think about it like this.
Aside from the telekinesis effects (aka psychokinesis), the prediction and strange coincidence effects are often just a creative wedding between mind reading and influence, or a union between mind reading and mechanical chicanery—in disguise.
For instance, on the surface, what appears to be an uncanny coincidence of two participants thinking of the same number may, under the surface, be discernment plus influence.
It's pretty obvious when you think about it.
When instructed to think of a number, two people never think of the same number simultaneously. One invariably thinks of a number before the other does. The mentalist has only to discern the number of the first participant then subtly force the next participant to think of the same number. Elementary!
But there's one small catch.
According to psychological science, reliable mind-reading must always be achieved in one of two ways (or sometimes, a combination of both).
The Two Method-Classes of Mentalism Tricks -
All magic tricks fall under the 8 types of magic tricks, and in the same way, except by accident, mind reading cannot happen outside these classes:
The mentalist forces or influences the participant to think of XYZ thought from an apparently infinite universe of options. The main challenge for the mentalist is to achieve the illusion of a free decision.
This is like a magician or illusionist levitating. The challenge is not in figuring out how to float unsuspended. The only challenge is to solve is how to hide the magnet, or render the cables invisible, or demonstrate that there are no threads, wires, or forklifts, etc.The mentalist permits a genuinely free choice from a genuinely infinite universe of options—such as imaginations of the past or memories of the future—and then, somehow, via a variety of principles and techniques, discovers the free thought.
You have two paths:
Force your participant to think of the thought you will pretend to discern (the real trick here is creating the illusion of a free choice). Or stand perfectly still as your participant freely thinks of a thought (the real trick here is discerning the thought or behavior, which you can do in several ways).
Consider the following experiment:
You think of a color, animal, or any word, and the performer correctly guesses that color, animal, or word.
How Do Mentalists Guess Words Or Names?
I’ll discuss a couple ways, but know that a professional mentalist like Corinda, Uri Geller, Banachek, Joseph Dunninger, or celebrity Derren Brown, knows a dozen or more:
Let’s say the mentalist needs the participant to think of a long word and not a short word. If he says, “think of a word longer than 8 letters” then that doesn’t feel like a free choice.
Instead, during his performance, the best mentalist may say to the group, “Should we make this easy or hard?”
Because the performer is a student of behaviorism, he knows the group will shout, "Hard!"
The performer drops his head, as if disappointed, "All right, fine. Wendy, think of a word, but don't make it easy."
Now the performer says to the group, "How many letters should the word be, at least?"
Audience members shout numbers-some of the numbers are ridiculous, but it doesn't matter. The performer points to a spot between two random audience members as if he heard someone say "8." The performer says, "That'll do, 8. Wendy, think of a word at least 8 letters long."
In the same way, a performer can force a color and not the even most skeptical spectator will catch the ruse.
By constraining the universe of options to include only 8+ letter words, he’s made his job much easier. But the trick was making the constraint seem free and natural (uncontrived).
First, something simple. Suppose the mentalist on deck, Max Maven, already knows that Wendy is thinking of one of her children. He also knows that she has two daughters. He knows that her daughter’s names are Amy and Kristina.
After minutes of suspense, the mentalist is about to reveal who Wendy is thinking of. At this moment, he does not know whether it’s Amy or Kristina.
He tells Wendy, “Think of how many letters are in this person’s name. You got it?”
Wendy says nothing, but Max Maven now knows she’s thinking of her daughter Amy.
How?
Because the performer punctuated his request with, “You got it?” Wendy will, maintaining eye contact with the performer, quickly nod her head—if she’s thinking of Amy.
If Wendy is thinking of Kristina, she’ll look away, shake her head, and say “Hold on.”
By using the participant’s silent feedback, the mentalist discerned which daughter she was thinking of.
Stay with me; this gets better.
A combination of the above is, to my mind, the cleverest mentalism approach. Invisibly restrict the participant's behavior to decide on a thought from an apparently infinite—but really constrained—constellation of options; then, either subtly force the outcome or (somehow) discover the choice.
Jon Finch
Read more @ https://www.finchmagician.com/blog/how-mentalists-read-minds/#mentalism-isnt-just-mindreading
Jon Finch is one of the most popular mentalists in the world.